Browser redirect is one of the oldest method used by malware developers to refer traffic to their websites and make money. A browser redirect virus works in many ways e.g. Once you do a search on your browser search engine they will hijack your search query and redirect you to another similar website. You click somewhere on your browser and it will redirect your current page to another similar page. These viruses can also show you popups, track your activities and also trick you to install any potentially unwanted program (PUP) into your computer. In this article I’m going to provide you a step by step tutorial about How to get ride/remove redirect virus manually from your Chrome Browser, firefox browser or Internet Explorer.
How to remove Redirect Virus from your Computer.
Follow below tutorial step by step to remove redirect virus manually from your Windows computer.
1. Create a Restore point.
Before starting to make changes on your computer or Scanning with any tool, make sure to create a system restore point. System restore point will help you to restore your computer later if you or any of your tool delete any system file during the process. Below article Will help you to create a system restore point.
2. Remove Unwanted Programs.
After Creating restore point, Now comes the first step to remove any unwanted program. If you want to remove redirect virus, you need to remove unwanted programs in the first step. Unwanted programs are generally installed by some freewares, or maybe you were tricked to install them by any fake popup or redirect virus. Follow below steps to remove any unwanted program from your computer.
- Click on Windows Button on your computer and search for program and features inside the search box and open Program and features.
Search for program and features - Now a new Window will appear on your screen containing all the programs installed on your computer.
- Look all of your installed programs closely and spot any program which you feel is not installed by you. Highlight the unwanted program and click Uninstall/Change (You can also search on google about these programs to know more about them, It will help you to know and remove unwanted programs more effectively).
uninstall unwanted programs
3. Scan System with Malwarebytes.
After uninstalling Unwanted programs, still there will be some Unwanted programs, viruses, and Malware’s hiding your computer. You need to scan your Computer with malwarebytes to remove these leftover programs. Click Below link to read how to scan your system with malwarebytes.
4. Scan System with AdwCleaner.
After removing Malware’s, viruses and Unwanted programs you have removed almost 40% of viruses from your compuer, But it’s not enaugh to remove redirect virus. Now comes the turn of Ad-wares, they are something different from unwanted programs and Malware’s, because they are difficult to spot. you Can use AdwCleaner to remove them, just open below link to know how to use AdwCleaner to remove Adwares.
5. Reset your Browsers
After doing all above steps, you have removed all 90% of the viruses, ad-wares, unwanted programs from your computer. Believe me still it’s not enough to remove redirect virus, Because they may have changed your proxy settings and have made changes in your browser settings. So you need to reset your browsers to reset any changes made by those viruses.
6. Change Browser Homepage.
Resetting your browser will roll back your browser settings but it will not change your homepage and default search engine. Viruses may have changed your default homepage to their homepage. If your homepage is other then google, yahoo, bing or duckduckgo, then change it right now to any of these.
7. Change Default Search Engine.
As i told you above, Resetting your browser will reset settings of your browser but not Default Search engine. Viruses may have changed your browser Default Search Engine to their one. your default search engine must be Google, yahoo, bing or duckduckgo. Read below article to change your homepage.
8. Remove Browser Extensions (Plugins).
During Browser reset, All your Unwanted Extensions will be Disabled by default, But if you want to make sure that they are completly removed from your system you can remove them manually.
Read:
- How to disable/remove extensions from firefox.
- Disable and remove extensions from Chrome.
- How to disable Add-ons from Internet Explorer.
9. Fix Issues with CCleaner.
After Making all above changes, your computer will have lot’s of broken or invalid registry settings as well as junk files. Now you need to remove those junk files and invalid registry to avoid any error on your system in future. Removing them will not only fix your issues but also optimize your computer performance. You can use CCleaner to do this task.
That’s it, Now you have successfully removed redirect virus from your pc. If you have any question or suggestion regarding my article about how to get ride/remove Redirect virus from Chrome, Firefox or Internet Explorer, Feel free to comment below.
